The court held a trial for Su Tianfu's case; the judge delayed the result

(Guizhou, 2018-4-26)
On Thursday (April 26th), the Court of Nanming District, Guiyang held a trial of first instance for Su Tianfu, the pastor of the Huoshi Church of Guiyang, who was accused of "intentionally disclosing state secrets." The trial lasted two hours. At the end of the trial, the judge decided to announce the verdict later.

Su Tianfu is the pastor of Huoshi Church based in Guiyang, a church that the government forcibly shut down. Su Tianfu was accused of "intentionally disclosing state secrets" for forwarding pictures and texts through WeChat. The 12th court of the Court of Nanming District, Guiyang held the trial at 9:30 A.M. on Thursday. The defendant Su Tianfu and his two representative lawyers, Xiao Yunyang and Zhang Peihong, attended the court session. According to indictment, the defendant Su Tianfu posted a text titled Prayer Letter in "The 3rd group chat of Huoshi Church" on December 8th, 2015, and the text contained two pictures that included state secrets. On the same day, he forwarded another two articles that contained the aforementioned pictures in the Circle of Friends on WeChat. The National Security Bureau of Guizhou Province confirmed that the texts and pictures contained state secrets.

After the trial, Su Tianfu told the reporter that the court session ended at 11:30 A.M. and lasted about two hours. The judge will announce the verdict later. Su Tianfu told the reporter that since the case involved state secrets, the court could not hold the trial publicly, and he was not allowed to talk about it. "The trial lasted two hours. Because it was held in public, I can't talk about it. Nominally, the prosecutors is the Procuratorate of Nanming District. The indictment deemed me guilty and presented evidences. The representative lawyers defended me and argued around the evidences provided by the prosecutors."

According to Su Tianfu, since the court refused to hold the trial publicly, no auditors were allowed in the court room. "There were no people auditing the trial. The court didn't allow it." The reporter called the representative lawyer Xiao Yunyang several times, but no one picked up the phone.

On last May 12th, the Procuratorate of Nanming District, Guiyang sued Su Tianfu, but the court waited for a long time to conduct the trial. The charges against Su Tianfu are the same with Pastor Yang Hua (Original name: Li Guozhi), who was already sentenced and imprisoned. On last January 6th, Yang Hua was sentenced two years and six months in prison for "intentionally disclosing state secrets." Yu Lei and Wang Yao, Christians involved in the same case, received a year and half in prison and a two-year probation respectively.

During the trial, Su Tianfu insisted that he was innocent. He said: "I simply forwarded a prayer letter in WeChat, and according to the government, the letter contained state secrets. From a legal point of view, I did not 'intentionally' leaked the state secret. The lawyers will judge if the texts and images really contained state secrets. I will not deny the things I did, but it's up to the lawyers to decide if they are illegal or not."

The Huoshi Church had more than five hundred members and six years of history. In December 2015, the government of Guiyang banned the church and arrested a large number of church members, including Pastor Yang Hua. In this January, the local church forcibly confiscated the church properties and sold them with the low price of 5.42 million yuan after twenty days. The buyer is Nanming Investment Group Co. Ltd under the Nanming Supervision and Management Office of State-owned Assets.